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I'm trying to configure ThunderBird to send email messages using SMTP/Amazon SES.
Amazon provides documentation on how to configure Outlook which should, in theory, mean that I could configure an alternate email client to do the same. However, it seems as though Thunderbird refuses to allow me to set up an outgoing-only account.
I get to this screen (image link) and get stuck.
I run into two issues:
First: Thunderbird doesn't allow me to do anything if I don't specify an incoming mail server. I attempted to type none as specified in the documentation as well as leaving it blank. If it is missing, Thunderbird will not let me attempt to verify the account.
Second: (And this very well may be related to the first issue), if I use the same value for outgoing and incoming servers (as in the screenshot), I am unable to validate my credentials. I have tried leaving password empty and entering none for the user name, tried entering AWS keys for username and password (as in the screenshot) and various combinations of the two.
In addition, I was able to get Gmail to connect to the outgoing mail server. In fact, the only reason I'm not just going directly through Gmail is because it requires that I receive an activation link/code from my outgoing address. Since SES addresses cannot receive email, I cannot access said activation email.
What this comes down to is that I am trying to use a free GUI email client (Gmail, Thunderbird, something else) to send emails through SES's outgoing SMTP server. I've seen around the internet that people have managed to do it, but no one posts steps :(
I have since moved on from the project that required this, so I am not really able to verify your answer as correct in my case. However, it seems thorough enough so I'm hoping it helps someone in the future! – zashu – 2016-02-22T19:53:34.363